Automated License Plate Readers (Sheriff's Department)

Dave Maass,

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Sincerely,
Sergeant Edward Soto
CPRA Unit
Riverside County Sheriff's Department This is an auto-generated email and has originated from an unmonitored email account. Please DO NOT REPLY

Dear Dave Maass:

Thank you for submitting a request for public records to Riverside County Sheriff's Department. Your request was received in this office on 11/3/2022 and given the reference number C000903-110322 for tracking purposes.
Records Requested: " Dear Custodian of Records:
This letter constitutes a request under the California Public Records Act ("CPRA") from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, submitted with the assistance of MuckRock News.
We request the following records related to Automated License Plate Readers ("ALPRs") and your law enforcement agency ("Agency").
Part A - Information related to ALPR data sharing.
A1. The names of agencies and organizations with which the Agency shares ALPR data;
A2. The names of agencies and organizations from which the Agency receives ALPR data;
A3. The names of agencies and organizations with which the Agency shares “hot list” information;
A4. The names of agencies and organizations from which the Agency receives “hot list” information.
The information requested in items A1-A4 is readily available for extraction through the ALPR software you use. For example, with Vigilant Solutions/Motorola Solutions, this data can be exported easily using the Data Sharing Report function. With Flock Safety, this information is available through the transparency portal function. Other software, such as BOSS, has similar functionality.
Most agencies have encountered little difficulty in providing this information (see below). In a small number of cases, an agency has interpreted items A1-A4 as requesting the creation of a record that does not exist. We disagree: this data is maintained by your software, can be exported through software your agency has already purchased, and is therefore subject to CPRA.
However, should you disagree, you may alternatively produce the following records:
A5. All agreements, memoranda of understanding, requests, or other certifying documents that external agencies have signed to comply with Sec 1798.90.52(b) for accessing your agency's ALPR data. These documents are also often required under the "Releasing ALPR Data" subsection of a California law enforcement agency's SB 34 policy.
A6. All agreements, memoranda of understanding, requests, or other certifying documents that your agency has signed pursuant to Sec 1798.90.52(b) to access other agencies' ALPR data.
A7. All "records of access" required by Sec. 1798.90.52(a) for the periods January 1, 2021 until the date of processing this request.
Items A5-A7 are not necessary if your agency provides the information requested in items A1-A4. We feel that items A1-A4 are more focused and would require less labor from your agency to produce.
Part B - Information Related to Numbers of “Detections” (plate scans) and “Hits” (plate scans that matched to a hotlist)
B1. The aggregate number of "detections" collected during 2021.
B2. The aggregate number of “hits” during 2021.
B3. The aggregate number of "detections" from January 1, 2022 until the date this request is processed. If your agency has a retention period shorter than 1 year, please provide whatever data is available based on your retention period. For example, most Flock Safety systems may not have this data beyond 30 days.
B4. The aggregate number of “hits” from January 1, 2022 until the date this request is processed. If your agency has a retention period shorter than 1 year, please provide whatever data is available based on your retention period.
The information requested in items B1-B4 is readily available through the ALPR software you use. For example, with Vigilant Solutions/Motorola Solutions, this data can be exported easily using the Hit Ratio Report function. With Flock Safety, this information is available through the transparency portal function. Other software, such as BOSS, has similar functionality. As noted above, this information exists within your system and can be easily exported with existing software.
Part C - Assistance, Description, and Recommendations.
We make the following requests under section 6253.1 of the California Public Records Act
C1. A description of the information technology and physical location in which the records exist.
C2. Assist us identifying records and information that will help the public understand how ALPR data and hotlists are shared, how much data is collected year-to-year, and how much of that data matches a hot list; and
C3. Provide suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the information sought.
Please note that more than 80 California law enforcement agencies have provided the information requested in Parts A1-A4 and B1-B4 in previous years."
Pursuant to California Government Code § 6253, staff will review your request and respond within 10 days to notify you if there are responsive records, or if an extension is necessary to determine if responsive records exist.  If your request was received after business hours or on a weekend or holiday, the next business day will be considered the date of receipt. The 10-day response period starts with the first calendar day after the date of receipt (Ca. Civ. Code, § 10.).  You may be contacted by the department if there are questions regarding your request.

PLEASE NOTE: The California Public Records Act (CPRA) does not require a governmental body to create new information, to do legal research, or to answer questions.

You can monitor the progress of your request at the link below and you'll receive an email when your request has been completed. Again, thank you for using the Records Request System.
Riverside County Sheriff's Department
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--- Please respond above this line ---

RE: Public Records Request of November 03, 2022, Reference # C000903-110322

Dear Dave Maass,
While the responsive records were disclosed, the Department redacted information for privacy reasons. Where non-disclosable portions of public records are “reasonably segregable” from the disclosable portions, the agency may withhold or redact the non-disclosable portions while producing the disclosable portions. Thus, redactions are permitted under the CPRA, as long as the basis for the redaction (specified exemption) is identified in the agency’s response. See Cal. Gov. Code § 6253(a); American Civ. Liberties Union Found’n v. Deukmejian (1982) 32 Cal.3d 440, 452-454.
Government Code § 6254(k)- read in conjunction with Article 1, § 1 of the California Constitution provides that personal information details are subject to privacy rights that make such information exempt from disclosure.
The Department has asserted the above exemption as legal authority to redact portions of our disclosed records.
On November 03, 2022, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department received your request for records under the California Public Records Act (CPRA) wherein you requested the following: ***your original request has been edited for clarity***
We request the following records related to Automated License Plate Readers ("ALPRs") and your law enforcement agency ("Agency"). Part A - Information related to ALPR data sharing.
A1. The names of agencies and organizations with which the Agency shares ALPR data;
A2. The names of agencies and organizations from which the Agency receives ALPR data;
A3. The names of agencies and organizations with which the Agency shares “hot list” information;
A4. The names of agencies and organizations from which the Agency receives “hot list” information. We located the records responsive to your request, and those records are available in the Records Request System.  Please log in to your online account to retrieve the records. ***specific to Flock: A3-A4: Hot Lists are managed by individual users who can choose to limit access to only specific users or all agencies with whom access to Hot List has been granted.  Hot List access/sharing to other agencies is managed by Flock, who state that they do not have a method of exporting or reporting an agency specific list.
Part B - Information Related to Numbers of “Detections” (plate scans) and “Hits” (plate scans that matched to a hotlist) B1. The aggregate number of "detections" collected during 2021.
B2. The aggregate number of “hits” during 2021.
B3. The aggregate number of "detections" from January 1, 2022 until the date this request is processed. If your agency has a retention period shorter than 1 year, please provide whatever data is available based on your retention period. For example, most Flock Safety systems may not have this data beyond 30 days.
B4. The aggregate number of “hits” from January 1, 2022 until the date this request is processed. If your agency has a retention period shorter than 1 year, please provide whatever data is available based on your retention period. We located the records responsive to your request, and those records are available in the Records Request System.  Please log in to your online account to retrieve the records. ***specific to Flock: B1-B2: Outside of Flock retention period.  Not available, therefore no records exist B3: 70,690,800 aggregate number of detections from January 1, 2022 to November 2, 2022. B4:  6,842 aggregate number of hits from January 1, 2022 to November 2, 2022.

Part C - Assistance, Description, and Recommendations.
We make the following requests under section 6253.1 of the California Public Records Act
C1. A description of the information technology and physical location in which the records exist. All Flock data is stored on Amazon AWS Government Cloud Server and deleted automatically every 30 days on a rolling basis. All Vigilant data is stored on Azure Government Cloud Servers. Our agency physically deletes all detections and all hits after 730 days. Hot Lists go inactive after 30 days.
C2. Assist us identifying records and information that will help the public understand how ALPR data and hotlists are shared, how much data is collected year-to-year, and how much of that data matches a hot list. Our agency owns the ALPR data it generates and decides whether to share the data with other agencies.
C3. Provide suggestions for overcoming any practical basis for denying access to the information sought. Our agency is working on a Transparency Portal which will make all the requested data publicly available.
This concludes the Riverside County Sheriff's Department response to your CPRA request. ment
Sincerely,

Sergeant Edward Soto
CPRA Unit
Riverside County Sheriff's Depart